Ivan Pavlovich Tovstukha
Иван Павлович Товстуха
Stalin's first secretary, keeper of his archive and author of his first biography
Bazhanov recalled Tovstukha matching ballot handwriting against registration forms: who crossed out Stalin's name? "He had only half a lung, but Stalin had complete confidence in him."
Stalin's first personal secretary (1918–1935) and head of the CC Secret Department (1926–1930), Tovstukha ran Stalin's private secretariat and controlled access to the Lenin Institute archive. He authored the first official biography of Stalin for the Granat Encyclopedia (1922) and directed the first edition of Lenin's Collected Works. As an émigré he joined the French Socialist Party and worked as a labourer; after returning he became secretary at the People's Commissariat for Nationalities, where his lifelong attachment to Stalin began. His management of the documentary record, above all selective access to Lenin's and Trotsky's papers, was a decisive ideological tool for the Stalin faction.
Career timeline
- 1905–1909Revolutionary activity in Chernigov Social-Democratic organisation
- 1909–1911Arrested for possession of banned books; exiled to Siberia
- 1912–1917Fled abroad; labourer in Austria and France; joined French Socialist Party and Paris RSDLP(b) section
- 1917–1918Secretary, Inspectorate Department, Central Staff of the Red Guard
- 1918–1921Secretary and collegium member, People's Commissariat for Nationalities; attached to Stalin
- 1921–1924Responsible worker in CC apparatus; organized and ran Stalin's personal secretariat
- 1922Wrote the first official biography of Stalin for the Granat Encyclopedia
- 1924–1926Assistant director, Lenin Institute; prepared the first edition of Lenin's Collected Works
- 1926–1930Head of the CC Secret Department and First Assistant to the General Secretary
- 1930–1931Deputy director, Lenin Institute; editorial board of Proletarian Revolution
- 1931–1935Deputy director and head of archives, Marx–Engels–Lenin Institute
- 1934–1935Candidate member, CC VKP(b); member, Central Executive Committee of the USSR